The next few days while he waited for his hands to fully heal Nero spent most of his time on the seventh floor, not wanting to face any killer ants for the time being as he had a plan for them and instead focused on training his ability to freeze the air around him using the purple moths and practicing his dodging and tessen justsu using the needle rabbits, the energy bar that showed his ability to summon a new trainer increasing by the day
"This floor doesn't really cause me any troubkle anymore" Nero stated as he walked past a purple moth, its whole body freezing solid after he stood there for a few seconds "these moths can't do anything to me due to my ice powers and aren't really good for training anymore, as for the needle rabbits"
A single rabbit charged at him with those words, trying to impale him with its horn only for Nero to catch it mid air by the horn
"It really is to bad that I can't seem to recreate the unique drop again, if I could we wouldn't need to worry about money again" he sighed, freezing the rabbits horn before killing it in an attempt to get the needle rabbits tusk drop item infused with ice abilities, on a rare occasion he got the drop but unfortunately it was only ever the normal one
"I'm just glad I've not stumbled across that many killer ants on this floor as the adventurers usually take them out as fast as they can due to not wanting to be swarmed by them, a feeling I can understand all to well" he moaned, if you looked closely a faint scar still lingered on each of his hands from where they were cut
"Well now that I can manage the other monsters without having to rely on my weapons I guess I should try my experiment with the killer ant, it is the one I first got the inspiration for doing this from"
Heading down to the next floor in order to increase the likelihood of finding a killer ant it wasn't long before Nero found one
"Black ice" Nero called out, firing a block of ice at the killer ants face, the ice freezing its mouth shot making it so that it wouldn't be able to call for backup, an idea that Yumi had suggested when she saw him training against them and seeing how the ants regularly called for backup
Unable to call for backup the ant charged at Nero only for him to leap into the air and land on its back
"Alright then, let's give this a go" Nero commented, grabbing the sides of the ants mandibles and channeling his magic into his hands, being careful not to grab onto the inner parts of the mandibles in order to not get cut again
The ant started thrashing about, trying to throw Nero off but Nero wrapped his legs around its torso and grabbing onto the spreading ice which had covered the sharp blades of the killer ants fangs
"Now, if I break this here" grunting as he broke the fangs free from the ants face "and stab here" thrusting the icey blades into the ants neck "lets see if it worked"
The ant disappeared in a puff of smoke, Nero landing on the ground with a sigh "nothings ever that easy is it" only the magic stone having dropped
Out of the corner of his eye Nero noticed another killer ant walking around, not having noticed him yet
"Well I didn't get a drop so maybe it's just me being unlucky this time so the best thing to do is repeat it until I get lucky and get the drop, practice makes perfect so nothing for it but to do it again and again, just like training" Nero smiled, firing a black ice at the unaware ants face
A few hours later and a large number of slaughtered killer ants later Nero still hadn't got a single drop and his backpack was now full of killer ant magic stones, enough that he had been forced to leave some of the magic stones from the monsters from the higher floors behind in order to fit all of the magic stones in his bag
"I suppose it makes sense that I didn't get anything" sighed Nero, having got to the point of realising that even if he continued for the rest of the day that nothing would change "killer ants aren't supposed to have a drop in the first place so the fact I got anything must have been some kind of miracle in itself" deciding that there was no point in continuing Nero decided to return home for the day
After handing in his spoils at the guild and having made slightly more than the last few days due to going to a lower floor and getting rid of the magic stones that had been worth left Nero left the guild with 20,000 valis
"Aura, I'm back" Nero announced as he entered the diner
"Welcome back Nero" Aurathia replied "how was your day?"
"I tried as many times as I could but I wasn't able to get the unique drop again no matter how many ants I killed" Nero told her, placing his backpack on the side "how did things go on your side?"
"I took those fangs you had to Hephaestus and even she said that she had never come across anything like them before" she commented "the closest thing she had seen was a mage trying to scam her with by giving her a needle rabbits horn that they had froze with their ice magic, I hear that some of her shops still refuse to serve him" she chuckled
"So how much did she offer for it?"
"Considering how unique it was and the fact that there are two mandibles she said she would offer 200,000 valis for them and if you could manage to produce any others she would take any others for 50,000 each, after all she told me that the only other ice based materials she had ever heard of came from the deep floors which even the Loki familia haven't explored yet and only the Zeus and Hera Familia's ever got anywhere near to, they would have been worth more but due to them only being from a killer ant they aren't as strong as most of the materials that can be found in the lower floors so most of their value comes from their element and the uniqueness of the drop" Aurathia answered
"That's 10 times the amount I earned today, with that much we might be able to start looking for a new place somewhere even if we have the demand of it having a big bath" Nero said happily
"So you want to sell it to her?" confirmed Aurathia
"Yeah, it's more than the guild offered and we don;t know how much we would get at the auction so it's best to get money at an amount that we know, plus you said that she is one of your old friends and there's never anything wrong with being on the good side of one of the cities best blacksmith Familia's" Nero grinned
"Alright I'll take them to her tomorrow, she'll be happy to hear it" Aurathia responded "now lets get some cleaning done before the diner opens, certain cleaning methods can be used a training as well"
"Always training aren't you" Nero chuckled
"I'm the goddess of training for a reason" Aurathia giggled back "that's the reason the trays are heavier now, train my arms while working"
Shaking his head with a grin both of them got to work.